Catch-up wrote::? Where is that head slapping smiley when you need it? Nobody wants to be told they're beautiful in spite of something. I feel like I should write more, but we're back the speechless part of this topic.

It a common courtesy/diplomacy thing CB (and Con) - by saying that all the Italian wheelchair athletes looked gorgeous 'despite' being in wheelchairs she's inferring that being in a wheelchair automatically makes you unattractive and it's like she's amazed that those Italians can look that good?

It's a fine line in some respects, but at present (like in that post about rascist behaviour in Greece and threats to go after gays and the disabled next) any kind of malicious stereotyping is being given short shrift just now, in part because of the Paralympics, but also because there's increasing hostility and institutional/social prejudice towards disabled people in general in the UK. Currie's made insensitive remarks like this before and although she probably didn't mean it to sound so bad it's just really tacky bad taste at best and at worst extremely offensive verging on criminal (in a hate crime sense) to make very public generalisations like that.

I agree that sometimes people can get over-sensitive but in this case its just downright rude and disrespectful before you even get onto what's politically correct.

"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” George Bernard Shaw

See..... it was way back.... I was just married to the hubby and had a huge payout from the mining company I had quit from to move to Brissy..... to get everything up and running I took him to an accountant to get his tax fixed up and our finances sorted. The nice accountant offered me a prospectus in an upcoming little Australian movie Paul Hogan was trying to raise finances for. Film Australia used to fund alot of aussie movies but it had been rough years and every movie made lost money hand over fist so funding was tight for anyone trying to get a movie made. You could buy a piece of this movie for a thousand or two. You know... lots of little investors... and I said.... "Who the hell would go to see a movie with Paul Hogan in it????"